All chief nepo baby Dakota Johnson’s tone-deaf interviews, ranked

Dakota Johnson is a legacy nepo baby. Her showbiz pedrigee is unparralled. She is the third generation of her family to make her mark in Hollywood. Her grandmother was the Alfred Hitchcock muse, Tippi Hendren. Her parents are Melanie Griffiths and Don Johnson. Antonio Banderas was her stepfather. Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough was apparently her bestie growing up. Honestly, I could go on and on about her showbiz connections.

Anyway, what this all arguably has done is create a celebrity who is not afraid of coming across a bit, well, over it in interviews. Her approach is both galling and intoxicating, and it seemed apt to collate and rank them by how tone-deaf they are.

8. When she called the movie industry ‘afraid’ and ‘boring’

Dakota gave her damning assessment of the film business when she told L’Officiel that everyone just did “the safe thing” and that made things “really boring”. While this is probably true, to say that in a setting as public as a magazine interview, its giving security in your position in the business!

7. When she reminded us she is too cool to be terminally online

Dakota Johnson does not need to bother with the humiliation of being perceived online. Instead of being interested in a line of the Madame Webb trailer apparently going viral “out of context” by a HuffPost journalist, she was just OVER it and didn’t really hold back showing it. She responded flatly and sensibly, dubbing it “What a silly thing…That seems like a basic storyline to me – but maybe I’m just underneath it.”

6. When she exposed Ellen DeGeneres as being a bit liberal with the truth

“That’s not the truth, Ellen” might be one of the most iconic lines ever spoken on daytime television, so this ranking cannot miss the time in December 2019 when Dakota pointed out that Ellen DeGeneres was telling porkie pies. The immortal line came after Ellen was asking why she’d not been invited to her 30th birthday, which apparently she had. It feels relevant to point out that possibly only a repo baby could get away with this blatant disrespect of the Hollywood machine.

5. When she lied about loving limes

Mother Dakota kept us fed just before the dreadful lockdown when she showed off her house via Archetical Digest’s Open Door video series. In the clip, she let us all see her beautiful green abode decked out in Midcentury furniture, and a new meme was born. She told the camera: “I love limes. I love them so much, and I like them like this in my house.”

However, it was all fraudulent and explained so when she was appearing on Jimmy Fallon the following year. Apparently, she “didn’t even know that they were in there” as they were put there by the interior decorator. Dakota added: “It was hard to just ignore them.”

4. When she revealed that she likes to get 14 hours of sleep a night

Dakota told the Wall Street Journal in December last year that she could “easily” get 14 hours of shut-eye but cannot function without ten and that it is her “number one priority in life”. In her defence, she clarified to Jimmy Fallon that she didn’t “demand” 14 hours and that she wasn’t a “monster” about. However, really, quite frankly, who has the time? In this economy? It’s giving someone else manages your life admin.

3. When she called being in The US Office ‘the worst time’ of her life

The two-week shot for the last ever episode of the NBC comedy was not a good time for Dakota, according to her chat with Seth Meyers on Late Night. The vibes were awkward, and I had to actually pretend to send faxes, which is objectively the funniest admin task because, you know, scanning and PDFs are a great modern alternative. No, it probably was rubbish, but if that’s the worst thing that has happened to you, count your blessings!

2. When she was completely unbothered by her grandmother’s big cat collection

Dakota regaled The Graham Norton Show sofa with how her granny Tippi Hedren still does have lions in her home, which were profiled in an iconic spread in Life magazine in the 70s. Dakota revealed that Tippi has “13 or 14 lions and tigers”, but by the time she was born “, they were all in huge compounds”, detailing how it “was a lot safer, and it wasn’t as totally psycho as it was when they first started.”

1. When she called the conversations around being a nepo baby ‘incredibly annoying and boring’

Dakota doesn’t really find anything interesting in her family lineage, telling the Today show: “When that first started, I found it to be incredibly annoying and boring. If you’re a journalist, then write about something else. That’s just lame.” Dakota, while I sympathise and wouldn’t want to be reminded of my family all the time, it is relevant actually!

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Photo credit via Huff Post/The Ellen DeGeneres Show/Today